Book of 2020

 I don't know everything that I read this year; I stopped tracking them properly in the summer. These are, in no particular order, the best of what I know that I read over the year:

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

Running Scared by Edward T. Welch

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratten-Porter

Peril and Peace (Volume 1 of History Lives) by Mindy and Brandon Withrow 

God’s Tribesman: The Rochunga Pudaite Story by James and Marti Hefley

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden 

The Epistle to the Hebrews by Homer Kent

Digging Ditches by Helen Roseveare 

Devoted by Tim Challies 

In His Steps by Charles Sheldon 

Missions by Andy Johnson 

The Light Princess by George MacDonald

God and the Transgender Debate by Andrew T. Walker 

Writing to Learn by William Zinsser

Side by Side by Edward T. Welch

Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias  

The Land of the Blue Burqas by Kate McCord

 The Orphan Queen by Ottilie von Wildermuth 

The Story Telling God Jared C. Wilson 

It's an odd little mix of biography, history, fiction (generally older fiction), and theology.

Hello

 Why yes, it has been a long time since I posted. It's been a pretty rough year (to put it mildly), and I haven't felt like writing, or like doing much other than just trying to get through it, really. I'm back, though, and I'm going to try again. Things are still messy, but I'm finding my way through, and maybe writing will help (or at least the discipline of sitting down to write).

Anyway...this year: Covid issues, health issues, and work issues all piled together to wear me down and wear me out. I'm on sick leave right now, and trying to figure out what to do with my life (and waiting to see the last specialist). I'm okay, really; it's just a throat issue that won't clear up properly. I have a long list of things that aren't wrong with me!

I should be posting my "best books" lists right now. I'll tell you the truth: this wasn't a good year for reading because I was tired a lot and reading took a lot of energy.  I did read, of course, and I'll post some favourites in the next day or two. I didn't track everything (or anything past about the middle of the year), but I'll do what I can.

I tried the Challies reading challenge, and failed spectacularly. I may try again next year (I have it printed), or I may try the Redeemed Reader challenge for kids and teens (it has different categories, and I can use books written for adults; I don't have to fill it in with kid/teen books (although that might help!)). I'm not sure. I also might just read, but having a plan will help.

I've been watching more tv lately, while knitting and crocheting (a baby blanket, an afghan for my niece, and now more baby blankets for the slew of babies due at the church). It's been a nice way to spend the evenings and I feel productive. I'm sticking with simple patterns, and I find it very relaxing. It's probably good that there are a dozen babies coming!

That's the update for now. I'll be back tomorrow or the next day with book recommendations from the past year.

A Page of Notes

I stumbled upon some notes that I had made as I read the Bible last year. There's noting too deep here; just some really short things (mostly bits of verses) that I jotted down. I'm going share them with minimal additions:

• Judah (and so David and Christ) came from Leah the unloved.
• Exodus 28:2: "for glory and for beauty"
• Leviticus 23:40: "beautiful trees"
• 1 Kings 4:5: "and Zabud the son of Nathan, the priest, was the king's friend" (he's in the list of Solomon's officials, and that's all it says about him)
• 1 Kings 11:39: "but not always" (God talking about how He will afflict the descendants of David for Solomon's sins)
• 2 Chronicles 9:8: "to do justice and righteousness"
• 2 Chronicles 19:6: "You do not judge for man, but for God..."

It was a small paper, and that's all it has.

A Realization about Life

There has been a wave of weddings lately, and not just any weddings: these are my babies from Sunday School and Junior Church, kids I've known since they were little. They're growing up now. Even the ones I still think of as tiny are entering high school and graduating from high school. It's been a bit overwhelming, and I wasn't sure why.

A friend (whose children are entering all of the above stages) asked why I was having a harder time with it than she was. To be fair, I'm naturally more emotional than she is, and lately I've been in that wonderful stage of womanhood where my emotions are even more pronounced and surface, so there's that. It got me thinking, though, because it seemed to be more than that. I think I've finally figured it out.

I'm mourning for what I will never have.

It was the same when I had to face the knowledge that I will never have babies of my own. I grieved for what I had given up and for the life that I had expected but would never have. And then I moved on and lived the life that I had been given. And I say again (in case anyone has forgotten or doesn't believe me): it's a good life. I like what I've been given, I like having the time to study and to serve the church, and I like who I am. I don't want to change it for anyone else's life.

But. But sometimes it's hard to watch my friends enjoy the life I dreamed of when I was younger. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have been granted marriage and motherhood. And now I'm at the age where I should be watching my children graduate and go to university and get married and go on to live their own wonderful lives.

It's okay. I'm okay. Now that I can see where all these emotions are coming from, I can deal with them and then move on again. And in time, I'll watch all my friends' children go through these stages and rejoice with joy unmixed with sorrow. I know: I've already done it.

And now that I can see what's happening, and that it is likely to happy at various stages (because I really thought that once I dealt with the baby issues, I was good), I'll be better prepared next time it happens. I'm anticipating it already in a few years when my friends become grandparents. And I will mourn again, and then move on to enjoy watching that new stage as well.

Sunday Stuff

Today was the first post-Christmas break Sunday School class. We learned about William Carey and his time in India. I don't know that they understand what a big thing it was for him to leave home and go that far away, to never go home again, and to have months between letters from home. We live in a much smaller world in that way. With email, letters get places so quickly. And we give missionaries breaks now and then. It's a whole different world.

James is preaching through John's gospel now. I'm really enjoying it (but then I love John's gospel).

Our associate pastor is leaving us at the end of the month. They (he and his family) are moving up north (way north) to a church who needs a pastor. I'm sad that they're leaving, of course; I love them and have loved having them here for the past 4 years. At the same time, I realize that we have 2 excellent, godly men as pastors, and there's a church without anyone. They need him in ways that we don't; we have another pastor and the elders, and we will be cared for. I think that I would feel selfish if I insisted that they stay here and leave that other little congregation to take care of themselves.

And now, a hymn for Sunday:

Non-Fiction of 2019

Here are my favourite non-fiction books read in 2019, again mostly in order of when I read them.

1. Hannah Anderson: All That's Good
2. Randy Alcorn: Heaven
3. Tim Challies; The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (to be exact, I finished it in 2019, although I started it in the previous fall, but it still counts)
4. Owen Strachan: Always in God's Hands: Day by Day in the Company of Jonathan Edwards
5. Janet and Geoff Benge, Christian Heroes Then and Now:
1. Lottie Moon: Giving Her all for China
2. Nate Saint: On a Wing and a Prayer
3. Norman Grubb: Mission Builder
4. Paul Brand: Helping Hands
5. Loren Cunningham: Into all the World
6. Helen Roseveare: Mama Luka
7. Richard Wurmbrand: Love Your Enemies
6. Wendy Horger Alsup: Practical Theology for Women
7. Eric Metaxas: 7 Men and the Secrets of their Greatness and 7 Women and the Secrets of their Greatness
8. Aimee Byrd: Housewife Theologian
9. Richard Rhodes: Hedy's Folly
10. Tara Westover: educated
11. Rebecca VanDoodewaard: Reformation Women
12. Malcolm Gladwell: Talking to Strangers
13. Terry Pratchett: A Slip of the Keyboard
14. Max Eisen: By Chance Alone
15. Michael Farquhar: Bad Days in History
16. Susan Cain: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking

My Favourite Fiction of 2019

As always, these are the books that I read in 2020, not books that were published that year. And they come to you in no particular order (well, to some extent, in the order in which I read them).

1.  Patti Callahan: Becoming Mrs. Lewis
2. Sarah McCoy: The Mapmaker's Children
3. Stuart McLean (it was a bit of a Stuart McLean year):
1. Vinyl Cafe Unplugged
2. Extreme Vinyl Cafe
3. Home from the Vinyl Cafe
4. Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe
4. Noel Streatfeild (also a few; she was a favourite when I was a child, and I am enjoying reading the ones I didn't know about then):
1. Christmas with the Chrystals
2. Christmas Stories
3. Theatre Shoes
4. The Vicarage Family
5. Ballet Shoes for Anna
5. Randy Alcorn: Lord Foulgrin's Letters (a modern Screwtape Letters)
6. Brandon Sanderson: Firefight and Calamity (in which I finally finish the series I started a couple years ago).
7. Megan Whalen Turner: The Thief (I liked it enough that I haven't been able to read the sequels because I'm afraid they won't be as good and I'll be disappointed).
8. Jostein Gaarder: The Christmas Mystery and The Solitaire Mystery